I opted to make the change – and I’m happy I did.

I’m going back to powerlifting-style work. All the bodybuilding-style work has been fun and a good break for my body, but it’s not what I really love to do. I also think it was starting to get a little stale and taking a toll on my body in its own right, so it felt worthwhile to change instead of pressing through for whatever arbitrary reason. Part of me doesn’t like to do that, because often enough it happens that I’m wanting to see something through but I switch. But I know in the long run, it’s better for me and my body has appreciated it more. I have to keep my primarily goals in mind.

To that, it’s not just the style of lifting that I prefer, but I am hoping it’s a bunch less work and thus less impact on me. Sure the intensities are higher, but the load is overall less – fewer reps, far fewer sets. Besides, I built a bunch of muscle, time to make it do something useful!

So I’m starting on the Renaissance Periodization Powerlifting templates. They have 3 variants: hypertrophy, strength, peaking; designed to be used solo, or as a fully periodized cycle. I opted to go into the strength cycle because I’m coming off a lower-rep/higher-intensity hypertrophy cycle, so I didn’t see a reason to do that template. I also am not 100% sure where I should be on this. Yes, some of the movements I can easily pick the weights for, but some I have zero idea where I am. For example, I haven’t low-bar squatted in ages, so I made a reasoned guess. And conventional deadlifts? It’s been a VERY long time since I did them, so I guessed as well. But then with that, I actually opted to do an additional workup today. It’s NOT part of the program for today, but I wanted to get a strong idea of where things really are for me so I could get better benefit.

I also am opted to do a couple off-template things. I’m adding in calf work (tho I forgot to do it today) because I found that was very good for my feet and legs, in terms of just better health and getting around. I’m also adding in some biceps work for similar reasons. Not much of this stuff as I don’t want to impact the main work, but I know keeping a bit of this in will be good for me.

As for today.

It felt really good to low-bar squat again. I wasn’t 100% sure where to start on weight, but I made some fair estimates from my high-bar work and what I landed on felt good for a start. It just felt good, Period. 🙂

Front squats went quite well.

And then deadlifting. Again, hadn’t done it in ages, so while today was strictly light triples, it felt SO light — too light. I opted to work up in rough triples just to see where I might better be. Sure enough, things were beyond where I had estimated. Hitting a triple at 365 after all the prior work I did? The triple was good for the preceding work, and I wasn’t going to a rep0-max here. But this does make me revise for later this week. I’ll see how Thursday’s proper-deadlifting session goes and refine from there if I need to.

Anyways, happy time, happy time.

RP Powerlifting, Strength Cycle, week 1

• Squat (low bar)
  • bar x 10
  • 135 x 5
  • 185 x 5
  • 225 x 3
  • 270 x 8
  • 270 x 6
  • 270 x 5
• Front Squat
  • 160 x 8
  • 160 x 8
• Competition Deadlift
  • 135 x 3
  • 185 x 3
  • 220 x 3
  • 220 x 3
  • 315 x 3
  • 365 x 3
• Reaching Situps
  • 15 x 12
  • 15 x 12